Men charged with transporting counterfeit handbags, wallets

Three men were arrested Wednesday after they were found transporting designer handbags and wallets suspected as counterfeit.

Mahamadou Samassa, 52; Abdoulie Gallokho, 32, also known by the alias Mustopha Camara; and Bangal Jagana, 44, were charged with forged or counterfeited trademarks, service marks or copyrighted or registered designs.

The men, originally from Africa but now Atlanta residents, were pulled over for speeding on Interstate 20 near mile marker 195 about 8:40 a.m., according to a Richmond County sheriff’s incident report. While talking to Samassa, who was driving the white Ford cargo van, the deputy smelled marijuana.

The deputy asked for permission to search the vehicle, and found three large black plastic bags – marked Michael Kors, Coach, Louis Vuitton and Jimmy Choo – containing 28 handbags and seven wallets that appeared to be counterfeit, according to the report.

ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here and for
following agreed-upon rules of civility. Posts and
comments do not reflect the views of this site. Posts and comments are
automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some
comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules,
click the "Flag as offensive" link below the comment.

An before I get flamed --- Yes I know generally Weed smell is good indicator that more is around. But as adults we all know, knowing something is a lot different that proving something.

NO I am not saying let them go free.
But given the limited details in the article, the odds are looking 50/50 they will.

In this case
this looks like the old 1950-60's looking for Illegals under the Handicap as an excuse to conduct a drug search, under the vale of stopping illegal immigration. There is an actual Federal case that a judge used that term

A very major problem here is, there were never any drugs found.
Maybe counterfeit bags and wallets smell like Weed to this deputy?
Maybe they just finished off a joint leaving nothing to find.

Again given the articles limited info, we don't know a lot. What we do know is, the Deputy knows his counterfeit merchandise on sight, even if his sense of smell is debatable.

Personally I tend to be suspicious of ANY search based solely on something that can't shown to a jury in court. Because it opens the doors to abuse by the very few unethical LEO that some how manage to slip into a uniform.

Yes, I understand once in awhile a bad guy goes free to protect the rights of the other 97% who are not criminals in this society.

One of our found fathers said as much back in the 1770's and it still hold true today, even more so today.

Benjamin Franklin thought "that it is better a guilty Person should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer."

Law enforcement officers are very well trained in how marijuana smells and he got permission to search the speeding vehicle. If he had not got permission and had called for a K-9 squad who found no drugs they would have been on their way.

I've never understood why criminals would speed on the interstate calling attention to themselves.

The illegal purses fall under the plain view doctrine. Although they gave permission for the vehicle to be searched, the items were found inadvertently because he was searching for an illegal substance.

I see the point noc, just don't care in this situation. If they had been searched and nothing was found and the driver called the newspaper raving about search and seizure infractions, yeah, then i give them the benefit of the doubt. If yer dirty though, yer dirty, and they got caught being dirty. I don't hate them for it, but they bought the ticket, they can ride the ride. Plenty of money to be made in this scam. Who's to say they aren't scamming the IRS either? I don't know, kinda hard to find sympathy. I do know they were in possession of the knock-offs and the quantity suggests they were going to sell them to victims. Glad they got caught. But yes, there is an issue out there regarding search and seizure, just not applicable here. Puffing in a vehicle will saturate the environment with weed-smells. Not finding evidence doesn't rule out the possibility that they were having a joint session.